Israeli strikes killed at least four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials said, as Hamas leaders met mediators in Cairo to discuss ways to reinvigorate a fragile six-month-old U.S.-brokered truce.
Medics said an Israeli strike killed at least three people near Salah al-Din Road in the central Gaza Strip, and another killed one person near a hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah further south.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on either report.
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Samah Abu Daqqa, 33, carries jerrycans filled with water through a tent camp in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday. Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Samah Abu Daqqa, 33, carries jerrycans filled with water through a tent camp in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday. Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
Violence in Gaza has persisted despite an October 2025 ceasefire, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for truce violations.
At least 800 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect, according to local medics. Israel says militant attacks have killed four of its soldiers over the same period.
On Thursday, a Hamas official told Reuters a delegation from the group arrived in Cairo two days earlier for meetings with mediators over U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan.
Sources close to the talks said efforts to push Israel and Hamas into the implementation of a second phase have made little progress.
According to the plan, Israel is meant to pull back further in the second phase as a transitional authority assumes control in Gaza and a multinational security force is deployed. Hamas is supposed to be disarmed, under the plan, as reconstruction begins.
More than 72,500 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza war began in October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities. Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel – which precipitated the Gaza war – killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.